This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
SEC: Government Destroyed Documents Regarding Pre-9/11 Put Options
On September 19, 2001, CBS reported:
Sources
tell CBS News that the afternoon before the attack, alarm bells were
sounding over unusual trading in the U.S. stock options market.An
extraordinary number of trades were betting that American Airlines
stock price would fall.The trades are called "puts" and they
involved at least 450,000 shares of American. But what raised the red
flag is more than 80 percent of the orders were "puts", far
outnumbering "call" options, those betting the stock would rise.Sources
say they have never seen that kind of imbalance before, reports CBS
News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Normally the numbers are fairly
even.After the terrorist attacks, American Airline stock price
did fall obviously by 39 percent, and according to sources, that
translated into well over $5 million total profit for the person or
persons who bet the stock would fall.***
At least one
Wall Street firm reported their suspicions about this activity to the
SEC shortly after the attack.The same thing happened with
United Airlines on the Chicago Board Options Exchange four days before
the attack. An extremely unbalanced number of trades betting United's
stock price would fall — also transformed into huge profits when it did
after the hijackings."We can directly work backwards from a
trade on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. The trader is
linked to a brokerage firm. The brokerage firm received the order to
buy that 'put' option from either someone within a brokerage firm
speculating, or from one of the customers," said Randall Dodd of the
Economic Strategy Institute.U.S. investigators want to know
whether Osama bin Laden was the ultimate "inside trader" — profiting
from a tragedy he's suspected of masterminding to finance his
operation. Authorities are also investigating possibly suspicious
trading in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.
On
September 29, 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle pointed
out:
"Usually, if someone has a
windfall like that, you take the money and run," said the source, who
spoke on condition of anonymity. "Whoever did this thought the exchange
would not be closed for four days.
"This smells real bad."
***
There
was an unusually large jump in purchases of put options on the stocks
of UAL Corp. and AMR Corp. in the three business days before the attack
on major options exchanges in the United States. On one day, UAL put
option purchases were 25 times greater than the year-to-date average.
In the month before the attacks, short sales jumped by 40 percent for
UAL and 20 percent for American.***
Spokesmen
for British securities regulators and the AXA Group also confirmed
yesterday that investigations are continuing.The source familiar
with the United trades identified Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, the
American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the
investment bank used to purchase at least some of the options.***
Last
weekend, German central bank president Ernst Welteke said a study
pointed to "terrorism insider trading" in those stocks.
The
Chronicle illustrated the story with the following chart:
On October 19, 2001, the Chronicle wrote:
On
Oct. 2, Canadian securities officials confirmed that the SEC privately
had asked North American investment firms to review their records for
evidence of trading activity in the shares of 38 companies, suggesting
that some buyers and sellers might have had advance knowledge of the
attacks.
***
FMR Corp.
spokeswoman Anne Crowley, said her firm -- which owns the giant
Fidelity family of mutual funds in Boston -- has already provided
"account and transaction" information to investigators, and had no
objection to the new procedures announced yesterday. Crowley declined
to describe the nature of the information previously shared with the
government.
So the effort to track down the source
of the puts was certainly quite substantial.
What were the
results and details of the investigation?
Apparently, we'll never
know.
Specifically,
David Callahan - executive editor of SmartCEO - submitted a Freedom of
Information Act request to the SEC regarding the pre-9/11 put options.
The
SEC responded:
This
letter is in response to your request seeking access to and copies of
the documentary evidence referred to in footnote 130 of Chapter 5 of the
September 11 (9/11) Commission Report.***
We have been
advised that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed.
If
the SEC had responded by producing documents showing that the pre-9/11
put options had an innocent explanation (such as a hedge made by a
smaller airline), that would be understandable.
If the SEC had
responded by saying that the documents were classified as somehow
protecting proprietary financial information, I wouldn't like it, but I
would at least understand the argument.
But destroyed? Why? (See Afterword for
additional details.)
Not the First Time
This is not
the first destruction of documentary evidence related to 9/11.
I
wrote
in March:
As I
pointed out in 2007:
The 9/11 Commission Report was largely
based on a third-hand account
of what tortured detainees said, with two
of the three parties in the communication being government
employees.The official 9/11 Commission Report states:
Chapters
5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al Qaeda
members. A number of these "detainees" have firsthand knowledge of the
9/11 plot. Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses-sworn
enemies of the United States-is challenging. Our access to them has been
limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications
received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place.
We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no
control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest
would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so
that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify
ambiguities in the reporting.In other words, the 9/11
Commissioners were not allowed to speak with the detainees, or even
their interrogators. Instead, they got their information third-hand.
The
Commission didn't really trust the interrogation testimony. For
example, one of the primary architects of the 9/11 Commission Report,
Ernest May, said in May
2005:We never had full confidence in the interrogation
reports as historical sources.As I noted
last May:
Newsweek is running an essay by [New York Times
investigative reporter] Philip Shenon saying [that the 9/11 Commission
Report was unreliable because most of the information was based on the
statements of tortured detainees]:The commission
appears to have ignored obvious clues throughout 2003 and 2004 that its
account of the 9/11 plot and Al Qaeda's history relied heavily on
information obtained from detainees who had been subjected to torture,
or something not far from it.
The panel raised no
public protest over the CIA's interrogation methods, even though news
reports at the time suggested how brutal those methods were. In fact,
the commission demanded that the CIA carry out new rounds of
interrogations in 2004 to get answers to its questions.
That has troubling implications for the
credibility of the commission's final report. In intelligence circles, testimony obtained through torture is
typically discredited; research shows that people will say
anything under threat of intense physical pain.
And
yet it is a distinct possibility that Al Qaeda suspects who were the
exclusive source of information for long passages of the commission's
report may have been subjected to "enhanced" interrogation techniques,
or at least threatened with them, because of the 9/11
Commission....
Information from CIA interrogations of two
of the three—KSM and Abu Zubaydah—is cited throughout two key chapters
of the panel's report focusing on the planning and execution of the
attacks and on the history of Al Qaeda.
Footnotes
in the panel's report indicate when information was obtained from
detainees interrogated by the CIA. An analysis by NBC News found that
more than a quarter of the report's footnotes—441 of some
1,700—referred to detainees who were subjected to the CIA's "enhanced"
interrogation program, including the trio who were waterboarded.
Commission members note that they repeatedly pressed the
Bush White House and CIA for direct access to the detainees, but the
administration refused. So the commission forwarded questions to the
CIA, whose interrogators posed them on the panel's behalf.
The commission's report gave no hint that harsh interrogation
methods were used in gathering information, stating that the panel had
"no control" over how the CIA did its job; the authors also said they
had attempted to corroborate the information "with documents and
statements of others."
But how could the commission
corroborate information known only to a handful of people in a shadowy
terrorist network, most of whom were either dead or still at large?
Former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat
on the commission, told me last year he had long feared that the
investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda
detainees who were physically coerced into talking ....
Kerrey said it might take "a permanent 9/11 commission" to end
the remaining mysteries of September 11.Abu
Zubaida was well-known to the FBI as being literally crazy. The Washington
Post quotes "FBI officials, including agents who questioned
[alleged Al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaida] after his capture or reviewed
documents seized from his home" as concluding that he was:
[L]argely
a loudmouthed and mentally troubled hotelier whose credibility dropped
as the CIA subjected him to a simulated drowning technique known as
waterboarding and to other "enhanced interrogation" measures.For
example:
Retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman, who led
an examination of documents after Abu Zubaida's capture in early 2002
and worked on the case, said the CIA's harsh tactics cast doubt on the
credibility of Abu Zubaida's information.
"I don't have
confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road,
everything you say is tainted," Coleman said, referring to the harsh
measures. "He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn't
believe him. The problem is they didn't realize he didn't know all that much."
***
"They
said, 'You've got to be kidding me,' " said Coleman, recalling accounts
from FBI employees who were there. " 'This guy's a Muslim. That's not
going to win his confidence. Are
you trying to get information out of him or just belittle him?'"
Coleman helped lead the bureau's efforts against Osama bin Laden for a
decade, ending in 2004.
Coleman goes on to
say:
Abu Zubaida ... was a "safehouse keeper" with
mental problems who claimed to know more about al-Qaeda and its inner
workings than he really did.***
Looking at other
evidence, including a serious head injury that Abu Zubaida had suffered
years earlier, Coleman and others at the FBI believed that he had severe mental problems that called
his credibility into question. "They
all knew he was crazy, and they knew he was always on the damn
phone," Coleman said, referring to al-Qaeda operatives. "You think
they're going to tell him anything?"ACLU, FireDogLake's
Marcy Wheeler and RawStory
broke the story yesterday that (quoting RawStory):
Senior Bush administration officials
sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a
document recently obtained by the ACLU.
The notification came in a letter dated January
6, 2004, addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The ACLU
described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former
vice president Dick Cheney.
In the message, the officials denied
the bipartisan commission's request to question terrorist detainees,
informing its two senior-most members that doing so would "cross" a
"line" and obstruct the administration's ability to protect the nation.
"In
response to the Commission's expansive requests for access to secrets,
the executive branch has provided such access in full cooperation,"
the letter read. "There is, however, a line that the Commission should
not cross -- the line separating the Commission's proper inquiry into
the September 11, 2001 attacks from interference with the Government's
ability to safeguard the national security, including protection of
Americans from future terrorist attacks."
***
"The
Commission staff's proposed participation in questioning of detainees
would cross that line," the letter continued. "As the officers of the
United States responsible for the law enforcement, defense and
intelligence functions of the Government, we urge your Commission not
to further pursue the proposed request to participate in the
questioning of detainees."Destruction of
Evidence
The interrogators made videotapes of the
interrogations. The 9/11 Commission asked for all tapes, but the CIA
lied and said there weren't any.
The CIA then destroyed the
tapes.
Specifically, the New
York Times confirms that the government swore that it had turned over all of
the relevant material regarding the statements of the people being
interrogated:“The commission did formally request
material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission
was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our
request,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of
the Sept. 11 commission ....
“No tapes were acknowledged or
turned over, nor was the commission provided with any transcript
prepared from recordings,” he said.But is the
destruction of the tapes -- and hiding from the 9/11 Commission the fact
that the tapes existed -- a big deal? Yes, actually. As the Times
goes on to state:
Daniel Marcus, a law professor at
American University who served as general
counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the
discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard
nothing about any tapes being destroyed.
If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very
big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to
withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding
investigations.Indeed, 9/11 Commission
co-chairs Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton wrote:
Those
who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them —
obstructed our investigation.The CIA also is refusing to
release any transcripts from the interrogation sessions. As I wrote
a year ago:
What does the fact that the CIA
destroyed numerous videotapes of Guantanamo interrogations, but has 3,000
pages of transcripts from those tapes really mean?
Initially,
it means that CIA's claim that it destroyed the video tapes to protect
the interrogators' identity is false. Why? Well, the transcripts
contain the identity of the interrogator. And the CIA is refusing to
produce the transcripts.
Obviously, the CIA could have "blurred"
the face of the interrogator and shifted his voice (like you've seen on
investigative tv shows like 60 Minutes) to protect the interrogator's
identity. And since the CIA is not releasing the transcripts, it
similarly could have refused to release the videos.
The fact that
the CIA instead destroyed the
videos shows that it has something to hide.Trying
to Create a False Linkage?I have repeatedly pointed out that
the top interrogation experts say that torture
doesn't work.As I wrote
last May:
The fact that people were
tortured in order to justify the Iraq war by making a false linkage
between Iraq and 9/11 is gaining attention.
Many people are
starting to understand that top Bush administration officials not only
knowingly lied about a non-existent connection between Al Qaida and
Iraq, but they pushed and insisted that interrogators use special torture methods aimed at
extracting false confessions to attempt to create such a false linkage.
Indeed,
the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the
U.S. used torture techniques specifically aimed at extracting false confessions
(and see this).
And
as Paul Krugman wrote
in the New York Times:Let’s say this slowly: the
Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq,
even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to
make them confess to the nonexistent link.[A]ccording
to NBC
news:
- Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the
testimony of people who were tortured
- At least four of
the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report
have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop
being "tortured."
- One of the Commission's main
sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a
confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ
- The
9/11 Commission itself doubted
the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to
themselvesIn fact, the self-confessed "mastermind" of 9/11
also confessed to crimes which he
could not have committed. He later said that he gave the
interrogators a lot of false
information - telling them what he thought they wanted to hear - in an
attempt to stop the torture. We also know that he was heavily
tortured specifically
for the purpose of trying to obtain false information about 9/11 -
specifically, that Iraq had something to do with it.***
Remember, as discussed above, the torture
techniques used by the Bush administration to try to link Iraq and 9/11
were specifically geared
towards creating false confessions
(they were techniques created by the communists to be used in show
trials).
***
The
above-linked NBC news report quotes a couple of legal experts to this
effect:Michael Ratner, president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, says he is "shocked" that the Commission never
asked about extreme interrogation measures."If you’re sitting at
the 9/11 Commission, with all the high-powered lawyers on the
Commission and on the staff, first you ask what happened rather than
guess," said Ratner, whose center represents detainees at Guantanamo.
"Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical
document. If their
conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, therefore
their conclusions are suspect."...Karen
Greenberg, director of the Center for Law and Security at New York
University’s School of Law, put it this way: "[I]t should have relied on
sources not tainted. It calls into question how we were willing to use
these interrogations to construct the narrative."The
interrogations were "used" to "construct the narrative" which the 9/11
Commission decided to use.Remember (as explored in the book The
Commission by respected journalist Philip Shenon), that the
Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission was an
administration insider whose area of expertise is the creation and
maintenance of "public myths" thought to be true, even if not actually
true. He wrote
an outline of what he wanted the report to say very early in the
process, controlled what the Commission did and did not analyze,
then limited the scope of the Commission's inquiry so that the
overwhelming majority of questions about 9/11 remained unasked (see this article and this article).***
As
constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley stated:[The
9/11 Commission] was a commission that was really made for Washington -
a commission composed of political appointees of both parties that ran
interference for those parties - a commission that insisted at the
beginning it would not impose blame on individuals.Other
Obstructions of Justice[Other examples of obstructions of
justice include the following:]
- The chairs of both the 9/11
Commission and the Joint Inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees into 9/11 said
that government "minders" obstructed the investigation into 9/11 by
intimidating witnesses
- The 9/11 Commissioners concluded that officials from the Pentagon lied to
the Commission, and considered recommending criminal charges for such
false statements
- The tape of interviews of air
traffic controllers on-duty on 9/11 was intentionally destroyed by
crushing the cassette by hand, cutting the tape into little pieces, and
then dropping the pieces in different trash cans around the building as shown by this NY Times article (summary version is
free; full version is pay-per-view) and by this article from the Chicago Sun-Times
- Investigators for the Congressional Joint
Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even
rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry
sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then
hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official
stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the
White House. As the New York Times notes:
Senator
Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of
covering up evidence . . .* * *
The accusation stems from
the Federal Bureau of Investigation's refusal to allow investigators
for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to
interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the
landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.In his
book "Intelligence Matters," Mr. Graham, the co-chairman of the
Congressional inquiry with Representative Porter J. Goss, Republican of
Florida, said an F.B.I. official wrote
them in November 2002 and said "the administration would not sanction a
staff interview with the source.'' On Tuesday, Mr. Graham
called the letter "a smoking gun" and said, "The reason for this
cover-up goes right to the White House."
We
don't need to even discuss conspiracy theories about what happened on
9/11 to be incredibly disturbed about what happened after: the government's obstructions
of justice.
Indeed, the 9/11 Commissioners themselves are disturbed:
- The
Commission's co-chairs said
that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our
investigation"
- 9/11
Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be
some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have
access . . . ."
- 9/11
Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false
statements we were getting"
- 9/11
Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised";
and "One of these days we will have to get the full story
because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House
wants to cover it up"
- The
Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) - who led
the 9/11 staff's inquiry - said
"At some level of the government, at
some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about
what happened". He also said "I was shocked at how different the truth was
from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different
story from what had been told to us and the public for two years....
This is not spin. This is not true."
Afterword: Footnote 130 to chapter 5 of the
official 9/11 Commission Report states:
Highly publicized allegations of insider trading in
advance of 9/11 generally rest on reports of unusual pre-9/11 trading
activity in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. Some
unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an
innocuous explanation. For example, the volume of put options-
investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price-surged in the
parent companies of United Airlines on September 6 and American Airlines
on September 10-highly suspicious trading on its face. Yet, further
investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11.
A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to
al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a
trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American
on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in
American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options
trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9,
which recommended these trades. These examples typify the evidence
examined by the investigation. The SEC and the FBI, aided by other
agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to
investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many
foreign governments. These investigators have found that the apparently
suspicious consistently proved innocuous. Joseph Cella interview (Sept.
16, 2003; May 7, 2004; May 10-11, 2004); FBI briefing (Aug. 15, 2003);
SEC memo, Division of Enforcement to SEC Chair and Commissioners,
"Pre-September 11, 2001 Trading Review," May 15, 2002; Ken Breen
interview (Apr. 23, 2004); Ed G. interview (Feb. 3, 2004).
Did the Commission have full access to information regarding put
options? Was the Commission misled, as it was on other issues? Was
evidence destroyed or fabricated? We will never know, as the underlying
documents have - according to the SEC - been destroyed.
»
- advertisements -
Shhhh...shhhh...its all ok now, go back to sleep.
Rock a bye baby, in the tree top.....
There were cameras all over that building. If the fuel tank story(myth) was correct, it raises two questions. 1) Where was the massive explosion? (i imagine that such an event would be quite a sight to see, that is, a fuel tank explosion that could level a building). 2) How did a chaotic explosion cause the building to implode perfectly into it's own footprint.
That explanation is ludicrous.
Thanks, so few Americans today had high school physics and simply cannot comprehend the obvious.
And those of us with the math and physics background, who served in the military (especially combat zones) fully understand all the discrepancies and variances.
amen. That's why we are always POURING money into our wonderful education system here in AmeriKa
Please enlighten me. What is the obvious point I am missing?
F%^# it. I don't give a S#!t anymore. Everyone already has their mind made up on the subject. We'll all use our own confirmation bias to re-inforce our views despite contrary evidence. In fact, we're content with completely ignoring evidence that opposes our solidified opinions (myself included). As more time passes, the likelihood of any single individual to change their views goes to zero. What has been done has been done, and no matter how great your ability to understand the situation is, you won't be able to change where we're headed.
GL everybody...
I highly recommend Cognitive Dissonances "Welcome To The Insane Asylum"
All 4 chapters.
Take heart. This does not have to be true. But it takes effort (like, dilligent, persistent effort).
William James said that "Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
It also seems to me to be a very good strategy for combating confirmation bias (my own). It ain't perfect of course.
Hell, even being aware of confirmation bias is better start than most have.
+1
Sorry for the misinterpretation -- I was agreeing with you and thanking your for your insight.
You aren't missing anything, good citizen!
AHh damn!
I wish I would have seen that before I went on the diatribe below (not directed at you, just out to the public)
Initiate retraction...I apologize profusely...
(I love how tone and inflection are completely lost on the keyboard, sorry again)
Interesting. I tend to shy away from conspiracy theories and I can understand Rudy G. being kept away because that building was at risk from the get go. To your list of agencies, you can add the NAIC, although I doubt that they had much of a role as well as Salomon (wher I worked).
Don't get sucked into this conspiracy crap. watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXxynEDpwrA
spitzer you just wasted 4 minutes of my life with that load of crap. Anyone with half a brain knows 911 was a planned demolition.
PS. i junked you
Please don't take him seriously
is this all you have? The NIST reports have been debunked all four times they have been issued. get over it.
Keep clinging to faith in your conspirators. You are worse then the muslims.
Faith
SPITZER GOES FOR THE SLUR!!!
THE SLUR FALLS TO THE GROUND, SPITZER ATTEMPTS TO RECOVER...Pulls out a dictionary, picks a random page, points to a word and types the definition as a smarmy retort.
Opponent YAWNS.
I predict that SPITZER will soon resort to conflating this subject with oh, perhaps, creationism or climate change skepticism...Just a guess.
Yes, you are right. Don't question anything. Oswald was the lone gunman too.
I suppose you would have us believe that the Fed, ECB and SNB are NOT manipulating the stock markets? There is SO MUCH that doesn't make any sense about 9/11. At the most generous I would concede that the Bush administration knew it was coming and did nothing to stop it...but then when you consider WTC 7 it just doesn't compute visually... Anyone who has every been a 10 year old boy should know in his gut what a controlled demolition looks like.. And WTC 7 is a textbook controlled demolition. There is just no way that a building of that size can fall at the speed of gravity, STRAIGHT INTO ITS OWN FOOTPRINT unless done in a controlled manner. And ditto for WTC 1 and WTC 2. As a kid I used to entertainmyself trying to fly between the towers and into them on Microsoft Flight Simulator and it's not easy on a computer... Having both planes hit their targets perfectly on what one is to believe were first timers at the helms of those planes...COME ON! And over at the Pentagon, if you are to believe the "video" than the plane was skimming impossibly close to the ground...an altitutde that a cruise missile or a small jet could handle, but not a passenger jet... Look how the authorities are prevaricating about the BP oil spill... What about the 2007 market collapse that "no one" saw coming... COME ON! It's not like all that much would change if tomorrow everyone woke up and discovered incontrovertible proof that the U.S. government is not run for the benefit of the people. Most of us already know that. Zero Hedge is the only place that I have so far found that calls what's going on on Wall Street with chilling accuracy, week after week, and yet the MSM are like...what's going on? And that's on the odd day where they aren't just tooting the collective zombie horn that all is good..buy, buy, buy.. a recovery is under way...
It sounds to me like the idea that the Governement is capable of something so attrocious is so completely represhensible to you that you'd never ever consider, even for a second, that it's possible that forces in the halls of power that transcend any given administration were behind it. And that is what THEY are counting on.
Spitz,
Denial
Show me one piece of evidence from the conspiracy theorists that doesn't take a leap of faith to believe in.
Also tell me why the US didn't sneak WMD's into Iraq to show that Saddam had them if they could pull off an attack like 9/11.
they didnt need to sneak them in, Iraq had already been invaded!
IMHO: The only way to sneak WMD in Iraq is to have full cooperation of big number of people. Military, intelligence and etc. Also, untraceable materials. It appears the number of participants were not enough and gives hope that most of the people in military just duped but still have conscience.
Or maybe there was the other party that promised that WMD would be there and now have some officials on the hook for future use.
Thanks Spitz...It is all just pure entertainment from here. You ensured that I will have a very serene and pleasant evening. Thanks again.
http://www.infowars.com/top-construction-firm-wtc-destroyed-by-controlled-demolition/
Alan Hart is solid
Evidence ?
1. 3 BUILDINGS.....TWO PLANES !
Another one.......
2. Traces of unexploded, exploded and partially exploded NANOTHERMITE in the dust samples taken from many places and by different unconnected people all over Manhattan. Such dust lay 4ins deep after the event.
3. Eye witnesses as to molten metal under the buildings.
Spitzer...... Study the material from ae911truth.org. !!
What you have produced is very tame. Sorry, but it has not convinced me one bit ! I take it you are not an architect nor an engineer nor a physicist, nor a chemist.
You also have Philip Zelikow as head of the official commission....A DUAL US/ISRAELI CITIZEN !
I know someone who died on the second plane and some of his body parts and personal effects were later recovered on site. Does that count as evidence or or am I missing the obvious red flags evidencing that the aliens who really downed the plane worked with the Jews to sprinkle passenger body parts at the Trade Center site?
Fuckwits.
Mercury u are a tosser and karma is going to kiss your butt so hard you are going to another galaxy. If you really had friends in that building you would want to know why there are so many inconsistencies in the ridiculously small amount of evidence and investigation into this henious crime, coupled with clear proof of extensive fore-knowledge to the event. I would suggest you crawl under the rock you came from, but frankly it is not going to hide you, tosser.
Fuck you dbag. First of all I was responding specifically to the claim that the second plane was some kind of military or non-commercial plane which is bullshit. I knew someone on that plane and he ain't around no more. I also knew several people in the buildings and worked with many more. I know more about what went on in those buildings than you will ever know. I'm sorry if the terrorist hijacking story doesn't tie together nicely for you, that's life. Everyone knows 911 was preventable and several important red flags were raised by alert officials that were purposely stonewalled and red-taped to death. But it wasn't aliens, the neo-cons or some Jewish conspiracy it was a reasonably simple, mostly well executed plan by a bunch of Arabs that brought the towers down. The government failed to catch the terrorists when they could have mostly through bureaucratic idiocy, PC bullshit and plain incompetence - which is why I don't want them involved in any more of my life than they already are.
Miserable puke.
1. 1,300 foot support columns from tower One hitting a building with uncontrolled fire.
2. Fine aluminum powder coatings as rust inhibitors consistent with NICs.
3. Really? Jet fuel fired melting of construction materials followed by days of high heat smoldering.
truth.org? Hmm...
more stuff that requires a leap of faith to believe in, otherwise it would be fact.
Anyone with any presence of mind about them realizes that all versions of the 911 event require a leap of faith. It is because the destruction was not followed by a proper investigation. The real suspicion for any critical thinker is why our government decided on the story line that it did, and why our government is so adverse to looking into the nanothermite claims--and why do they not address the video evidence that really looks like shape charges of some kind went off proximal to the main beams of the buildings--exhibiting angled looking cuts? Why? Well I must have not seen or heard any of this evidence right? If you know anything about criminals, their first defense is that the witness or the victim must have not seen things right or must have been mistaken. Well--I and several others have seen--many have passed their judgement. As long as the government does not address what I have seen, I will not accept the official story because there is no proof of the official story--and I am not going to take a leap of faith into a story that is shoved into my face by the MSM. Anyone who does I consider gullible or as was stated in an earlier comment, malevolent.
the second plane was not a commercial airliner. no windows, wrong color, no logo
Debunked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j_c1tPMiG0&feature=related
next
here is loads of evidence
http://www.infowars.com/print/Sept11/pp_fdny.htm
and
http://cms.ae911truth.org/
your gonna say that your one source, that sites one opinion is without a doubt correct. Why is your source the only valid one.
Worse than the Muslims? No, not the Muslims!
Spitzer I challenge you to a duel. Please list all evidence you have that the story that was reported to the public is true. You can start with how the buildings were able to collapse into a pile of their own dust. We are waiting.
PS, you have offered no evidence for your claims and you have given strawman arguements at every turn.
Proper architectural design would be the starting point. The towers were designed to have a center core surrounded by floating panels (to absorb sway easily) with a mesh exoskeleton filled in with glass panels. I was much more fascinated by how long they stood after such a catastrophic hits.
The massive central core design is interesting. I've spent some time looking at the design prints on ae911 and the fact that they were not left (more or less) standing after the free floating floors around them sheared (pancaked) down intrigues me. This was a mass (over 100) of welded box columns of 54 inched by 16 inches made with 4 in thk steel plate. I can understand how the floors might have pancaked and sheared as the uppers hit the lowers but, it happened at almost freefall speed so, the forest of central columns should have been standing when the dust cleared. Seems to me they ended up in a rubble pile in short, recoverable sections. I wonder how THAT happened. Just askin'
Perhaps you should consult people who know more than you do before you spout off your fascinated impressions. That is IF you want to avoid sounding ignorant or malevolent.
Here is a video of Frank Demartini, Manager WTC Construction & Project Management speaking about the mesh exoskeleton.
The video is from History Channel for the context-freaks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO1JxpVb2eU
I'll take his impression over BenFleeced's.
What about the fact that every unbiased forensic investigation came to the same conclusion explained in this video ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tacYjsS-g6k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXxynEDpwrA
The reason I keep posting this video is because it is simply the truth and everyone should see it.
Here is a question for ya, who was the Bush friend who produced a movie released may 2001 and was nominated for 4 academy awards?
It was a motivational movie to say the least.
Hint. Jerry Bruckheimer.
Everybody is missing the important point here.
How many millions of dollars are wasted every year by employing demolition experts to bring down inconveniently tall buildings into their own footprints? We've all seen these charlatans being interviewed on TV. They act like it's a specialized art/science to be able to destroy a building without having it topple over onto the neighboring structures, annoying nearby landlords and tenants alike.
As the WTC events proved, you can blow up ANY building in whatever random fashion and it will always, 3 out of 3 times, come crashing down into its own footprint.
Instead of arguing over who caused the criminal destruction of three WTC buildings, we should be rounding up these damned "demolition experts" and throwing their fraud-spewing, lying asses into jail for misrepresenting their "profession."
But I guess these demolition fraudsters will probably be allowed to keep charging good money to blow up buildings, pretending that you need a lot of training, good copies of the blueprints and all kinds of specialized timer to do their phoney baloney jobs.
It's just not fair!
I haven't spent much time on the topic and still remain suspicious, but these videos do not impress me. The lack of noisy explosions explanation tries to do a sneaky end around the reports that thermite was present in the rubble and could have been used to silently sever support columns. Of course there weren't any noisy explosions echoing across Manhattan. That said, noisy explosions aren't the only means to demolish buildings . . .
You keep using these words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
+1,000,000
Awesome!
be cool Mr. LH,
most people on this site understand something is very wrong. That's why we are here discussing opinions that do not conform to mainstream media. Please ignore this jackal, he's here to deflect and we all know this.
You seem like a smart little fella.
So what was the definitive geopolitical prize at the end for the 9/11 attack ?
Faith definition-
The term is employed in a religious or theological context to refer to belief, ranging from confident to absolute without evidence or even in the face of contrary evidence. Since faith implies a trusting reliance upon things that are not known. Faith is in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true,[5] belief in and assent to the truth of what is declared by another, based on his or her supposed authority and truthfulness.
While I have no opinion on the conspiracy theories, I would point these out: You ask "what was the definitive geopolitical prize..." That is simple. The problem in the mideast has been clear for years. How do we protect the cooperative Saudis from being overrun by their resentful envious ambitious neighbors, either Iran or Saddam's Iraq? Certainly we owe the Saudis, and want nothing to change Arabian peninsula. Weakening Iran was easy, for a time: back Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war. That worked. Yet we were left with a strengthened Iraq, whose ambition was obvious. They tried to turn south after taking Kuwait. We stopped them. Then we piled on, but not so much that Iran could take the Shatt al Arab. Then we found we had to take out Saddam. He was hopeless, incorrigible. But we needed motivation and popular support. So Al Quada got suckered, and gave us what we needed. Now we need to turn our focus back on Iran, heavily. The Saudis need to support our efforts, however discretely. They are. Continuity in the Arabian Peninsula is the "definitive geopolitical prize" you ask for. It is obvious, simple, and probably in the interests of global stability. Next question.